Black Cat

Agnes Scott College has countless bizarre traditions. This week: Black Cat. 

What is Black Cat? The short answer: some sort of equivalent to homecoming week. The long answer: this blog post.

Black Cat week begins at the stroke of midnight Sunday night. The entire school has from midnight until 2am to "decorate" campus. 

Gathering outside the student center with our decorations.

Pestle Board has the option of wearing black, pink, or nothing. Their job is to wreak havoc and scare first-years.

The tower bell rings at midnight and we rush. Each class tries to get their class color to dominate the quad.

We also have a floor of the student center to decorate. Ours didn't turn out too great.

This is the "office" for the class of 2013. This is also where I lost my lens cap.

Against all odds, I found it! Sad that the best part of my night was finding my lens cap.

At 2am, the festivities were called to a halt.

Did I mention that all this while, I had two prospective students spending the night? Woof.

Tuesday: Trivia Night. One of my favorite parts of Black Cat. We had an incredible team and a brilliant adviser.

Final score for 2011. This is the definition of domination.

Thursday is bonfire night.

First, we all gather behind the library, wear yellow, and yell things, like "We love our sisters!"

As a giant herd, we make our way from the science quad to the main quad.

First years (green) are supposed to be fully clothed. Sophomores (red) are supposed to wear underwear. Juniors (yellow) are supposed to be topless. Seniors (blue) are supposed to be totally naked. Fortunately, very few people adhere to this scandalous rule of thumb.

We are the math tutors- hear us roar. Don't you have faith in our problem solving skills?

The actual "bonfire."

The majority of people are terrifyingly drunk. Each class takes turns singing their original song, and the Dean of Students reveals "The Black Kitty." We are graded on our costumes and spirit. When Black Cat was first made a tradition, the bonfire was enormous, held in the amphitheater (which no longer exists) and "The Black Kitty" was an actual cat to be won (not just a silly stuffed animal).

Paige and I hassled Dean Lee for a picture. I think she was pleased to find some students who were far from intoxicated.

After bonfire, we have one hour to clean up the mess we made on the quad. Paige, Megan and I made a quick run to Java Monkey in order to inject ourselves with caffeine. We then participated in the infamous tradition of a midnight rehearsal for Junior Production.  We finished by 2am, which was better than any of us were expecting.

Friday is "the big day."

Field Day. Three-legged races, egg races, tug-of-war, etc.

Community picnic. Hot dogs and hamburgers and veggie burgers, oh my.

Song Comeptition. Each class writes a song for themselves and a song for their sisters.

Dance competition. You know, just endorsing the objectification of women.

Then comes Junior Production. About 25 Juniors perform in a 100% original play, which is a parody of Agnes Scott life. It counts for 21% of the Juniors' overall score. We had been rehearsing every night from 9:30-midnight, we met on weekends to make props and costumes. Needless to say, JP had thoroughly taken over my life.

I played the clueless first-year student. We were four knights in a quest to save Agnes Scott's dragon. We searched for the magical healing Great Scottie and had to overcome great obstacles. In the end, we figured out that when we all work together, we are the Great Scotties who can heal the dragon. Cheesy for sure. But awesome. JP was graded and we only lost one point, for tact. In the words of the yellow knight, "What the hell is tact?!"

I only allow myself to go to Waffle House if there's a good story to go along with it. Post-show waffles at midnight?- Great Wa-Ho story.

 Saturday is the formal Black Cat dance. This year, it was held at the Westin Hotel in Buckhead. I didn't stay long because it was pretty crazy... but I took a few pictures, just to prove to the world that I have friends.

We like giggling.

We like pumpkins.

We like math.

 And so concludes Black Cat 2011. I need to hibernate.

Baby's First Photoshoot

I'm, like, a photographer! Or maybe I just have a nice camera and I'm pretending to be a photographer. Either way, here are some pictures of Steven and Rebecca from my first photoshoot!

 

I was second-shooting for my friend Ellen, who is far more legitimate than I.  But I'm learning! And I'm certainly glad Steven and Rebecca had enough faith in me to let me tag along!

I only blog about weekends.

Okay so it's awkward picture Sunday this week. Whoops. I'm sure you've already forgiven me.

Raindrops keep fallin on my hands.

"I Don't Believe in Bottled Water"

... You may have heard me use that pretentious line before. And you probably rolled your eyes at me. Understandable, because I haven't thoroughly explained myself until now. 

Although both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have admitted that Dasani and Aquafina are merely glorified tap water, the bottled water industry continues to generate millions of dollars of profit annually. The vending machine downstairs is continually restocked with dozens of bottles of water. Grocery stores continue to order pallets of bottled water, confident that they will sell every ounce.


Why do Americans feel compelled to buy overpriced tap water? It’s not the delicious vitamins or thirst-magnifying sodium added. (Tap water consistently wins in taste tests over bottled water.) It’s not the aesthetics of plastic bottles or creative advertizing. (There are plenty of pretty reusable options on the market.) Instead, it’s the culture surrounding tap water. The preconceived notion that tap water is “dirtier” than purified bottled water is completely false and needs to be reevaluated.


I fell victim to this common misconception as a high school student. Every school day for four entire years, I packed one Dasani water bottle in my lunch box. That’s a grand total of 720 bottles of Dasani. At the current price of Dasani, ($3.99 for a dozen) I drank my way though $239.40 of bottled water.  

I don't know why I was an Exclusively-Dasani-Brat.

Not only is this a hefty ding in my parents’ pocketbook, but also a heavy burden left in the landfill. With each empty bottle weighing in at a whopping 13 grams, I wasted a total of 9.36 kilograms of plastic. That’s about the mass of a one-year-old baby. 

I rummaged through the recycling bin. Let's assume Deer Park bottles weigh the same as Dasani bottles.

You may argue— babies are pretty small! My point is— babies grow. Not that my plastic is growing, but that if my consumption patterns hadn’t changed, the pile would be. In fact, at the rate of one bottle every day, it would only take me 11 years to waste my own weight in only plastic water bottles.

There is a viable alternative: tap water. Not just tap water when it’s convenient. Not just tap water when we’re trying to save a few dollars. Always tap water. Say goodbye to bottled water forever. Even if you’re currently not the most avid bottled water drinker, it quickly adds up: one water bottle every weekday leads to $86 a year. Luckily, if we commit to make the permanent switch to tap water, these $86 dollars can do much more good than provide you with overpriced garbage. The very same money that would have been spent can provide clean water to those who would otherwise have to walk miles daily in search of a life source. Once we stop taking for granted the outrageous resources we have, then we can radically bring change where change- and water- are needed. 

With options like these, who wouldn't want to make the switch?

Last Second Awkward

Quick! Its 11:25pm on a Saturday! Awkward photo time!

Fixing things, etc.

Knox Knox. Who's there?

Steve Moakler's there, that's who! If you haven't heard Steve's music, you need to fix that. He's a talented man. Currently touring with Andrew Ripp, Steve blatantly avoided us, bypassing the beautiful city of Atlanta. So Paige and I made the trek from Atlanta to Knoxville. HA!

Anyway, it was magical, awe-inspiring, fairytale-like, yadda yadda yadda. Also, according to my working definition of the word "inappropriate," (anything that makes you blush), this concert was so inappropriate. 

Since my official title is apprentice-master-videographer, I decided to make a video documentary of the trip:

The video does not include our pre-concert meet & greet. Because I didn't want to be that awkward with a video camera in his face. But here are a couple pictures: 

So cool, like an ice cream cone.

Ignore my sweat mark.

Awkz

Another awkward photo Saturday!

It takes two.

What's that? Yes, I agree, this is a lame post, but I'll have an incredible post soon about this weekend. It's been so fun. I'm halfway surprised I haven't exploded.

Happy long weekend!

Friday:

Date night with my friends. We watched Date Night. And fantasized about what it would be like if Tina Fey was our graduation commencement speaker. (It will happen.)

Saturday:

Freedom Fest Atlanta (in Marietta)! My friend Chrissy and I spent over 12 hours there. We started in the morning, working at a booth for The Mocha Club, which is an awesome non-profit organization you should check out.  We made friends with some pretty funny people, including Seth Philpott, who is an amazing singer/songwriter you should put in your ears.  He has some free music at Brite Revolution if you're interested.

After it was time for that booth to pack up, we looked at the performance schedule and realized Switchfoot was playing at 10PM. We had 6 hours to kill.

5:00 PM, met some long-lost childhood friends. This was scary.

6:00 PM Air Dog finals. Apparently this is a really trendy dog sport in the suburbs of Atlanta.

8:00PM Homemade peach and strawberry ice cream. Possibly the best ice cream of my life.

10:00PM Switchfoot.

We left at the perfect time. We heard the last song as we were walking to our car, beat the traffic out of the parking lot, and saw some fireworks on our drive back to Decatur.

Sunday:

Spent in agony over my Modern Geometries homework. 

 Then tried a new restaurant in Decatur with 5 of my pals. "Rocket 88." Brand new. They burned my friend Anna's sandwich and the fire department showed up. It was awesome.

Also- no matter how hard I try, I will never truly be satisfied when I order a salad.

Monday:

It's raining.

Sawkwarday

This photograph was taken in advance for Awkward Photo Saturday:

Fashion never stops.